THE FAMILY NAME
"Reputation, reputation, reputation!"
_Shakespeare._
It was long past closing time at Henry Carleton's. Every one, from the
oldest clerk to the smallest office boy, had long since gone home. For
three hours, almost, the two men had had the office to themselves. A
long, bitter battle of words it had been, all the stored-up brood of
evil passions, hatred and envy, anger and fear, as with the bursting of
some festering sore, had surged, foul and horrible, into the clear light
of the open day.
Henry Carleton sat at his desk, but not in his usual attitude of calm
composure, leaning back in his chair, the acknowledged lord and master
of his little world, envied by all men who came to see him, to buy or
sell, bargain and haggle, plot and plan. This Henry Carleton was a
strangely different man. Wearily enough he leaned forward in his chair,
his head propped on one hand, while in the other the pencil which
ordinarily never moved but to some purpose, to jot down some pregnant
list of facts or figures, now moved over the blank surface of the paper
in little aimless scrawls and circles; fit index, perhaps, to its
owner's strange confusion of brain--a man for once troubled, wavering
and irresolute, well-nigh, at times, despairing, yet still seeking
feverishly the solution of the puzzle, making desperate hunt for the
missing key.
Facing him sat Jack Carleton, astride of one of the office chairs, his
hands grasping its back, his eyes never leaving the other's face. His
whole expression--the twitching mouth, the deep-set gleam in his
troubled eyes, the unconsciously wrinkled brow--all seemed to bear
witness to some storm of passion that had passed over him, and even in
the comparative calm which had followed, had still left its traces
behind. One might have hazarded that the man who sat there staring into
Henry Carleton's face was a man actuated by two feelings, one new, one
old; one a fear, deep and deadly, the other a resentment so fierce and
bitter, that unrestrained by time and place, it would have loosed him,
like a bulldog, at the other's throat.
Without looking up, Henry Carleton again began the argument, his tone an
odd mixture, half threatening, half conciliatory, as one who, knowing
that it lies within his power to effect his ends by force, yet for some
reason strives first to gain them by gentler means. "Jack," he said, "we
have to find a way out somehow. And I want to play fair with you--I want
even to be more than fair--"
Jack Carleton cut him short with a laugh so utterly devoid of mirth, so
full of the bitterest malice, that a curse would have struck more
pleasantly upon the ear. "Oh, yes," he mocked, "of course you do. You
want to be fair." He paused a moment; then, with a naked, unrestrained,
deliberate passion horrible to witness, he protruded his head with a
gesture almost bestial, his tone lowered so that the words came
sibilantly from between his teeth. "You damned sneak," he said, "why, in
the name of God, can't you act like a man? Talk like a man? All these
dirty, canting phrases of yours; they've grown on you now so you can't
drop 'em if you wanted to. You've stifled all the real man that was ever
in you--and to start with that was precious little. You're a money
making machine; money distributing, too, if that's any comfort to you;
_you_ credit to the Carleton name. You've sneaked and schemed your way
so long that you do it from habit now; and a devil of a fine result
you've got this time. You want to be fair. Fair! Oh, my God!" he laughed
again.
Henry Carleton lifted a face flushed suddenly with angry crimson. "Stop
it, Jack," he commanded, and then, through force of long discipline,
with a sigh he slowly shook his head, and let his clenched hands relax.
"What's the use?" he said, with infinite patience, "what's the use now,
of all times? Hear me out, Jack. I know that you hate me. And I know
why. I've been a successful man, and you've been a failure, but our
chances were the same. You could have done as well as I. Only you chose
to use your energies in a different way. That's all been your fault, not
mine. And now this thing's come up. You've had a surprise to-day.
You've found things very different from what you expected. But what is
my attitude all the while? Am I trying to press my advantage as I could?
That's the last thing I want to do. You think I hate you, Jack. Can't
you see that I don't? If I did, would I be talking as I'm talking now?
Would I talk with you at all, even? Would I above all sit here and take
your insults--your abuse? Not for an instant. You sit there, alive and
free--and yet a dead man, Jack. Think of it! Dead already. Dead as if
you sat this instant in the electric chair. And what am I saying?--the
man that you think hates you. What am I urging and advising all this
time, when I could see you going in the prison door, never to come out
again alive? I'm showing you how to get out of the whole thing
scot-free; giving you every chance; and you won't listen to me."
Jack Carleton had heard him out in silence, indeed, but without further
emotion, without any change of the hard, set look on his face. "Oh,
you're damned generous," he sneered, as the other paused, "and you're
doing it all out of love for me. It's awfully sudden, this affection,
isn't it? It's been a long time coming." He laughed with a jarring
offensiveness, as if, strangely enough, he was deliberately trying to
incense, instead of to placate, the man of whose good will he stood so
sorely in need.
Again Henry Carleton's face grew dark, as if at last his irritation had
got the upper hand. "For Heaven's sake, Jack," he cried, "don't be a
child, just for the pleasure of trying to annoy me. I say again, I'm
being fair with you. I say again, more than fair. And if you want to
exercise your irony on me by implying that I'm not actuated by any love
for you, I'll say frankly that this is too complicated an affair for any
one person's claims to be paramount in trying to settle it. I'm
considering every one interested; I'm weighing all the chances for
everybody concerned; you and I, and Rose, and Vaughan, and Mrs.
Satterlee--we're all involved, and I say again, looking at everything
from all possible points of view, it's for our interest, Jack--for yours
and mine--to stand together, whatever happens. There's nothing I want
more, whether you believe it or not, than to see you get out of the
whole thing clear. And don't--" he raised his hand as Jack started to
speak--"don't go running off on any abstract theory of what's right and
what isn't. It's no use. It's waste of time. We've got to look at this
matter as it is--not as perhaps it ought to be. It's intensely practical
for us, Jack, and so let's look at it that way."
His words seemed effectual, as far as any further protest from Jack
Carleton was concerned. For a moment he sat silent, and then, with an
air of resignation, mingled with a certain indifference, "Very well," he
said, "look at it in that way, if you choose, for all of me. How does
that help? The whole thing's as mixed as before; you can't solve it
satisfactorily, try as you may."
Henry Carleton, well pleased, drew a quiet breath of satisfaction. So
much, indeed, seemed to him a signal gain. Little by little--that was
Henry Carleton's way. "Good," he said shortly, and then, "but it can be
solved, Jack, for all that. Not with perfect satisfaction to everybody,
perhaps; but it can be solved."
He spoke with such an air of assurance that Jack Carleton glanced at him
quickly, as if seeking some underlying significance in his words. Henry
Carleton's face, however, was devoid of anything of enlightenment, and
his eyes were looking idly across the room. "Yes," he repeated, "still
satisfactorily, in the main, I think. It's a pure question of logic,
Jack. Let's start with the assumption that if it can be avoided, you're
not eager to die."
Jack Carleton's eyebrows were raised half grimly, half ruefully.
Something of a kind of hysterical humor seemed to him to exist in the
idea of asking a man with such seriousness whether or not he was eager
to die. "Yes," he returned, "you can assume that. That's a good point to
start with."
There was something in his tone, despite the solemnity of the
discussion, that made Henry Carleton force a sickly smile, which faded
almost before it had come. "And second," he said, "you'll keep quiet as
long as any one else will."
Jack nodded again. "Certainly," he said, perhaps with more of bitterness
in his tone.
Henry Carleton leaned forward, looking him now straight in the eye, and
speaking with the most intense earnestness. "Then take the parties
involved in their turn," he cried, "if you stick to that, no harm can
come from you. No harm will come from me, in any event. And Rose, of
course, doesn't know. Of the other two, Mrs. Satterlee--" he paused an
instant, then continued, a little hastily, as it seemed. "Perhaps
there's no further need of going into that. As we know, she is safe, and
if not, there are certain precautions--no, we may dismiss that entirely,
I think. And that--" the pause was longer this time, "that leaves the
man who's been foolish enough to raise all this trouble to start with.
That leaves your friend, and my prospective son-in-law,--one man to be
reckoned with--Arthur Vaughan."
This time there was no mistaking the gathering menace in his tone. But
Jack Carleton seemed not to choose to understand his words. "Well?" he
asked.
Henry Carleton frowned. "Well," he snapped, "isn't it perfectly plain?
Vaughan wants something, of course. He's got us where he wants us now.
Of course I knew, for a man who, as a rule, is so pliable, that when he
turned stubborn about this, it was a plain case of hold-up. So that's
what we've got to do. Square him, in any way he wants. He's your friend.
Sound him; see what he's after. Whatever it is, if I can give it to him,
and I guess I can, of course I will. Go ahead and see him right away.
We've got to fix him quickly, whatever else we do."
Jack Carleton shook his head in vigorous dissent. "You're miles wide of
the mark. That isn't Vaughan at all. He's not that kind. Arthur's a
visionary, almost. He'd never have kept quiet as long as he has if I
hadn't practically gone on my knees to him. No, this is principle with
him. You're altogether mistaken. You can't stop him that way in a
thousand years."
Henry Carleton sighed. "I don't believe it," he said stubbornly. "I
don't want to believe it, but you ought to know him better than I. And
if it's so--I want to be fair with him--more than fair--" at the
familiar phrase Jack Carleton smiled a grim little smile--"but we're in
a bad box, Jack; a terribly bad box; and we've got to pull out of it
somehow. Make him the squarest offer you can--anything in reason he
wants--and if he doesn't see fit to accept--"
Jack Carleton sprang to his feet. "No, no," he cried, "that won't do. I
won't see anything happen to Vaughan. I'll go to him; tell him he's
mistaken; tell him he mustn't speak; tell him--"
Henry Carleton cut him short. "No use, Jack," he said curtly. "I've
thought of all that. It wouldn't do any good. In the first place,
Vaughan has this crazy idea about duty, and about Satterlee's blood
crying out to him from the ground, and all that nonsense; you know how a
nervous man can get worked up over a thing; and he's bound to speak
anyway. And in the second place, he wouldn't believe you. You can hardly
blame him, either. All the evidence together; the affair you had with
that woman, your stopping at the cottage that evening,--no, no, it won't
do. You might as well save your breath."
There was a pause. Jack at last nodded grudgingly. "Well, then," he
cried. "I'll let it go the other way. Let him go to the district
attorney, if he chooses. Let him tell his story, and let them arrest me,
and get me into court. Let him tell it over again there, for everybody
to hear, and you can tell your story, and Jeanne Satterlee hers. And
then, by God, I'll tell mine, and if there's such a thing as justice--"
Again Henry Carleton broke in upon him. "Nonsense, Jack," he said, "law
isn't justice. You know that as well as I do. You wouldn't have a
chance. It's open and shut against you. And don't go up in the air about
Vaughan; I didn't mean to be melodramatic. We won't need to go to
extremes. We can think up some way of keeping his mouth shut. You can
buy him off, I still maintain. And if you can't, we can still get at him
somehow. It isn't hard. I'll be frank with you, Jack. I'll lay my cards
on the table. It would mean death for you, but the scandal would hurt
me, at the same time. And above all, the Carleton name, Jack. Think of
your father. Think--"
Jack sprang to his feet. "Stop!" he cried. "It isn't for you to talk of
my father, and the Carleton name. Those words don't belong in your
mouth, Henry. And as for Vaughan, he's doing what he thinks is right.
And anything you do to him, reacts on Rose--on your own daughter. And
that's impossible. No, Henry, I tell you again, you can't work it out
that way. Whatever else you please, but I won't see harm come to Arthur
Vaughan."
Henry Carleton, unmoved, shrugged his shoulders. "As _you_ please," he
answered evenly. "You have your choice, Jack; there's only one other
way."
Jack looked him full in the face. "For the last time," he said, "you
tell me that this is true. You'll go ahead, and do as you say?"
The elder man inclined his head. "For the last time," he answered
calmly, "yes. Vaughan or yourself? The choice is yours."
Jack Carleton stood suddenly erect, throwing back his head, almost with
the gesture of a fighter on guard. "Then I tell you this," he cried,
"you're crowding me too far. I've done the best I could; I've thought of
others long enough; I'll think of myself now. There's a limit to what a
man's got to stand. I've been an awful fool, I know. I've wasted most
of my life, so far; lost my money; lost the chance to marry the girl I
loved. But for the last three years, I've got no apologies to make. I've
tried with every bit that's in me; I had my fight all but won. I made
good out West there; made good with myself; with my prospects; with the
girl I meant to marry--and then this damnable business had to come. And
I tell you, Henry, I won't quit now. You've got the best of me before;
perhaps you will again; but I'll take my chance. I'm willing to back
Right against Wrong, and I give you fair warning now that I'm going to
fight. You haven't beaten me yet."
He swung short around upon his heel, without waiting for a reply. The
door crashed to behind him, and Henry Carleton was left alone in the
room.